The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1887-03-02
PACIFIC COAST FARMING.
HOW FARMS IN CALIFORNIA ARE
OPERATED.

Wheat Raised by Contract-Borrow-
ing Money-Qualities of Chinese
Farm Misunderstanding Grapes.
The great staple product of California
is wheat, of which about fifty million
bushels, worth more than forty millions
of dollars, are raised in a good year,
four-fifths of which are exported.
This wheat is almost wholly raised on
large ranches by contract. The wheat
grower is no more a farmer than he is a
miner OF a miller. He lets out his plow-
ing and seeding by the acre, and borrows
money from the banks to pay the bill,
giving securing on the growing crop.
In harvest time a contractor comes on
the ground with his harvesters, threshers
and separators, an outfit costing as much
as five thousand dollars. He brings his
own crew of twenty to twenty men,
who move about from place to place, liv-
ing like gypsies in the open air. They
gather in the broad fields of grain at the
rate of more than one thousand bushels
per day, and leave the crop neatly piled
up in sacks, to which the rancher has not
put his hand from first to last.
More money is borrowed from the
per cent. per month to pay for the har-
vesting, and some time or any time, be-
fore the rainy season begins, the sacks
are carted either to the river or railroad,
and sent to market.
The rancher is to all intents and pur-
poses a capitalist, or, perhaps, manu-
facturer dependent upon the capitalist,
and, unless his operations are conducted
on sufficiently extensive scale, the mar
gin of profit is hardly enough to keep
him in idleness during the greater part
of the year.
Every wheat-grower in California is
not of this sort, but every well-lnformed
person will recognize the characteristics
of class sufficiently numerous to afford
basis for distinct and peculiar methods
of business, both as regards contracts,
transportation and finances.
1t is to the thrifty wheat-grower that
the employment of the Cinnamon be-
comes a necessity if he would vary his
husbandry, and avail himself fully of the
seasons opportunities. In planting,
wedding and digging, the Chinaman ex-
GELS, and the testimony of many a ranch
er is that without Chinese labor his
farming would not be successful
In grape culture the common practice
in the State is wasteful. Early in March,
the plough is put in among the vines to
remove weeds that careful culture would
never have permitted to grow. ThC
weeds come out, and so do all the ten
der roots near the surface.
During the summer the vines are com
monty allowed to run until they cove
the ground with shoots from ten to tif
teen feet long; then there is a spasm o
pruning, and they are all cut back jus
at the time when the whole strength o
the foliage is required to mature tn
juice in the rapidly swelling fruit.
The common price for grapes is iron
twenty to thirty dollars per ton, accord
ing to variety and quality, and tn
grower has so little margin for prof
that he can only employ industrious ant
steady laborers at small wages.
AS consequence, the most successful
grape-growers are compelled to emplo,
Cinnamon in their vineyards. Generall
the more successful the man, the NOR
Cinnamon he employs; their wages ar
from twenty to twenty-five dollars pc
month without board.
The employment of the Chinese be
comes more and more of a necessity oil
account of the high wages demanded b.
the white laborer. - Youths Companion